In early October I spent the weekend in Virginia Beach at the “Warbirds Over the Beach” airshow. This third post on the air show includes some more of the pictures I took, and a few other more “professional” pictures.
This is a flying model of the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter. I have already posted this picture. The Sopwith 1 1/2 stutter did its first flight in December 1915 and was introduced to combat in April 1916. It was the first British aircraft to enter service with a forward firing synchronized machine gun that fired through the propeller. It was also the first airplane to have air brakes (the Wikipedia article on air brakes only started discussing their history in 1931). It had a 130 horsepower French built Clerget 9B 9-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine. I gather 1,280 were built in England and 4,500 were license-built in France by 11 different companies.
This picture below taken by a friend of the same plane at the same time. Not sure why his picture looks brighter and better than mine. We were both using Apple I-phones. But then, I am really not that patient enough to be a good photographer.
They also had one in the museum
This is the observers compartment. Note the control stick. I gather this is a field improvisation, but was done during the Great War.
Spent the week before down in Virginia Beach at the “Warbirds Over the Beach” airshow. This second post on the air show includes some more of the pictures I took, although they are far from “professional”
In their museum is a Bleriot XI. It did not fly. This airplane may have been the second most significant airplane in history, after the various Wright Flyers. It was primarily designed by Raymond Saulnier. It relied upon the Wright brothers “wing warping” for lateral control, vice using ailerons. Over a thousand were manufactured between 1909 and 1914.
Louis Bleriot flew this plane over the English channel in 1909. It was also used by Adolphe Pegoud for his various inverted flight and loop demonstrations in 1913. The first British pilots to conduct loops also used this plane.
You are able to get up close and personal with the planes.
Raymond Saulnier designed the very similar looking Morane-Saulnier, which Roland Garros flew across the Mediterranean from southern France to Tunis. The Morane-Saulnier was pretty much just copied to create the Fokker Eindecker that started the Fokker Scourge of 1915-1916.
Morane Saulnier G (from Wikipedia)Fokker E III Eindecker – 1916 (from Wikipedia)
Spent this last week down in Virginia Beach at the “Warbirds Over the Beach” airshow. Also visited their museum. Took a few pictures, although far from “professional”
Here are some of the Great War planes lined up behind the hangers. These are all flying models:
The first plane is the Curtis Flyer, 1911. This is a reproduction. It did fly this weekend, lifting off from the airfield, but not too high, and then landing back down.
Next is the Fokker D VIII. It was the most developed and advanced Fokker of the war, with a few less wings then the more famous Fokker Triplane. It definitely flew with more power and gusto then the rest of the planes.
And then there are the Fokker DR1 of Fokker Triplanes, made famous by the Bloody Red Baron. They had two flying models.
And then there was the Sopwith Triplane. Note the minor design differences, in particular the “fourth wing” between the wheels of the Fokkers.
Finally, among the flying aircraft was a Sopwith 1/2 strutter two-seat aircraft. No Sopwith Camel though.
Eddie Rickenbacker in his Maxwell racer at Tucson, Arizona in 1915.
Not the usual subjects I look at, but was trying sort out the results of the Tucson Indy-car race on March 20, 1915.
One internet source I have shows the 11 runners. It has George Clark leading the first lap and Barney Oldfield (THE Barney Oldfield) leading the next 23 laps.
But apparently in the real world, Eddie Rickenbacher was leading the race for a while (THE Eddie Rickenbacher, America’s top ace in the Great War).
So, an article on 21 March 1915 in The Arizona Daily Star, says in part:
Dick Clarke, who many of the fans had picked as Tucson’s best bet, got the jump on the start and beat the [Hubbell’s] Mercer into the first turn. Oldfield started like a shot out of a cannon and led the [McVoy’s] Mitchell…Rickenbacker, driving the last Maxwell, was hardly around the second curve when the crowd commenced shouting “car coming!”….Doubt gave way to pandemonium as Dick Clarke shot past the stand, not only holding his own in first place but gaining. Six seconds later came another and the crowd went wild: it was the popular favorite Barney Oldfield who had passed the Mercer and was trying to catch the flying Stutz.
This is the lap in which Oldfield averaged 72 miles an hour and caused his manager to flash a signal to him when he passed his pit to take it easy. According to his manager, nothing on four wheels was going to stand that pace for a hundred miles of the bumpy dirt track.
Clarke Eliminated
Two more laps for Clarke and then a painful wait which ended when were Clarke brothers were seen walking toward the grandstand. “Broken connecting rod,” said Dick….
Meanwhile Rickenbacker, who before the race had remarked he would “win or smash” was driving like a demon. In the eighth lap he was 29 seconds ahead of Barney who driving like mad to keep away from the other two Maxwells who were after him. But the jinx decided that it was not a Rickenbacker day and in the thirteenth lap the “win or smash” driver went to the pits. Loose radiator connection and flooded spark plugs. Seven valuable minutes were spent making repairs and away again like the wind.”
So, it does appear that Dick Clarke led for first 2 or 3 laps, and by lap 8 Rickenbacher was in the lead until lap 13. Oldfield took the lead for the rest of the race.
There is a stat chart for the race in the paper:
Rickenbacher does note in his book Rickenbacker: An Autobiography, on page 62 that:
“The Maxwell Automobile Company had entered the racing field with a 3-car team and one extra car. Two well-known drivers, Barney Oldfield and Bill Carson, had already signed on, and I was the third. My role was to burn up the track and wear down the opposition while Oldfield and Carlson, less aggressive drivers, would hopefully come on strong in the last laps and win the race. Though we knew that the Maxwells were not superior racing cars, we hoped to hold our own in them through determination and driving skill, and it did work out that way.”
Dick Clarke is spelled Clark in other sources and also referred to as “George Clark.”
The Swiss-American Rickenbacker actually spelled his name at this time as Rickenbacher. He changed the spelling in 1918 to be less German, or to “take the Hun out of his name.” But, the Tucson newspaper spelled it with a “ck” for this race.
Adolph Rickenbacher, his distant cousin and a luthier, established in 1931 the company that made the Rickenbacker guitars. He also changed the spelling of his own name and guitar brand to match. These guitars were made famous by the Beatles, the Byrds and Tom Petty.
P.P.S.: Ads in Thursday’s, Friday;s and Saturday’s paper:
Federico José María Ronstadt was the grandfather of famous country and rock singer Linda Ronstadt.
P.P.P.S: An ad in the Sunday paper, day after the race:
I have been trying to find a copy of the silent film The Sky Raider (1925) staring the famous French ace Charles Nungesser. Does the movie still exist?
The episode occurred on 31 August/1 September 1914. The previous entry was 29 August (page 34), the next entry was dated 2 September.
Here is the translated account (according to Google Translate French as I don’t know French):
Nungesser episode. – However the Nungesser rider who joined the 148th combat train with his car received at 5 p.m. from the battalion commander of tail (battalion of the 53rd D. I.) the mission to go to all price in Laon, seek reinforcements. Leaving his wounded, Dubois, at the Coucy ambulance, Nungesser leaves with two infantrymen in his car. In the forest of Saint-Gobain he comes across posts enemies, who pulling on the engine immobilize the car.
Crawling in the ditches, hoping to escape to the enemies, the hussar and the two infantrymen saw arrive a 40 horse Mors ridden by four officers: a colonel, a captain of white cuirassiers and two lieutenants. Nungesser and his two comrades open fire and after having met the retort, can kill all the Germans. Putting on coats and caps of the dead, they jump in the car, Nungesser driving, re-enter our lines and arrive at E. Mr. where they bring back the important papers on the enemy officers. The general, enthusiastic, keeps Nungesser for lunch. “You are a hussar – he adds – you took a Mors, I give it to you, you will be the hussar of Mors 1. “
The footnote reads
1. This adventurous hussar had barely two months of service. Originally from Valenciennes, left at the age of fifteen for the Republic Argentina, he had been a cowboy there, then began his aviator training there. Arrived at the regiment at the end of June 1914, he had asked not to go to the deposit and immediately be paid into an active squadron.
The colonel had made him ride a difficult horse which he had known how to take advantage of and satisfaction had been given to his desire.
From the hands of the general of the 53 D. I. he received the Military Medal and brigadier’s stripes; after the Battle of the Marne, he was a house-marshal and joined the air force.
On a “Voisin”, he carried out 53 bombardments during the day and night, then taking the fighter monoplane, he descends from the aviatiks whose one which flew over Nancy. The city having opened a subscription in his honor he pays the proceeds to the hospitals.
A moving duel, in which he fires his last machine-gun band, 10 meters from his opponent earned him the Legion of Honor.
Following an injury which took away part of the palace, in 1916 he received the stripes of second lieutenant. At the end of hostilities he was a lieutenant, an officer of the Legion of Honor and was ranked second * in the ace behind Fonck; he had 43 victories. His head was set price by the Germans. Such was the career of this astonishing boy, constantly punished for his anti-regulatory loops, without ceaselessly rewarded for his acts of heroism.
* Charles Nungesser was the third highest scoring ace in French service. The late George Guynemer (1894-1917) with 54 claimed kills was second.
The Nungesser story is on pages 36-37 (or pages 46-47 in the file).
P.P.S. The picture of Nungesser is from the 1925 Hollywood movie The Sky Raider.
P.P.P.S.
The paragraph below is from page 36, under the discussion of the 1st Squadron and just before the discussion of the Nungesser Episode. This event appears to be dated 29 August.
The mayor of Coucy makes a car available to the Lieutenant Ninnin to evacuate Anizy; Nungesser gets behind the wheel but the car finds the road blocked by the enemy; Lieutenant Ninnin goes back on horseback and by joins the 1st Shooters, rearguard of the 13th C. A. Evacuated on the 4th in Montmirail, he returned ten days later at the 2nd Hussars.
And then it goes into the discussion of the “Nungesser Episode.”
Charles Nungesser (1892-1927) became the third highest scoring ace in French service during World War I with 43 claimed kills (3 shared). In 1914, he was with the 2nd Regiment of Hussars. His first fight was a ground skirmish behind the lines.
His actual citation reads:
“Brigadier [Corporal] of the 2nd Light Cavalry Regiment, on 3 September 1914, with his officer having been wounded during the course of a reconnaissance, he at first sheltered him, then with the assistance of several foot soldiers, after having replaced the officer who was disabled, he secured an auto and brought back the papers by crossing an area under fire by the enemy.” – Medaille Militaire citation
Now another book claims:
“Enlisting in the 2e Regiment de Hussards after war broke out, he ambushed and killed the four occupants of a Mors automobile on 3 September and drove it back to French lines, earning himself the Medaille Militaire and the car.”
Is there a better and more detailed account of this event?
P.S. The picture is of a 1914 MORS 12/15 CV from the movie Aces High (1976).
P.P.S. From what I have been able to determine the 2nd Hussar Regiment on the 3rd of September was at “Aisne, Courpopil, Farm de la Gouttier, Epied, Courbin and Maison-rouge.” (source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/2e_r%C3%A9giment_de_hussards)
P.P.P.S I have the 2nd Hussar Rgt reporting to the 4th Light Cavalry Brigade (Verdun) reporting to the 4th Cavalry Division (Sedan) which on 2 August was reporting to the II Army Corps which reported to the Fourth Army on 8 August 1914. Then I lose it as it is not reported with the II Army Corps on 5 August and it ends up in September 1914 reporting to the Second Cavalry Corps, which I am not sure who they reported to (in December 1914 they report to the “Groupement de Nieuport”).
Around the 22nd of August, Lt. Manfred von Richthofen with 15 Uhlans advanced into a woods near Virton, Belgium and when they got the other side of the woods, fell into a French ambush.
According to his account in his autobiography (pages 53-56), the horses of two of his Uhlans leaped the barricade blocking the path and and rode towards the French because the horses were in panic of the sound of all the gunfire.
His orderly’s horse was shot and fell down, trapping the orderly beneath it.
Richthofen and the rest of the Uhlans retreated back through the woods. The orderly returned two days later minus one of his boots, which was trapped under the horse. Richthofen claimed that there were about 100 rifles opposing them and they were firing from 50 to 100 yards. The orderly claims that “At least two squadrons of French cuirassiers had issued from the forest in order to plunder the fallen horses and brave Uhlans.”
This sentence gets my attention, as it tends to indicate that there were additional Prussian casualties besides the two men and horses who jumped the barricade and the orderly’s horse. As Richthofen’s autobiography was probably censored, it is possible that any reports of German killed might have been removed. Yet the sentence “…plunder the fallen horses and brave Uhlans” strongly indicates that there were indeed additional losses among the Uhlans and their horses that were not detailed in this book.
Has anyone examined this engagement in depth, checked the unit records, etc. and determined what actually occurred and what were the losses?
In 1917, Manfred Albrecht Baron von Richthofen (1892-1918), sometimes known as the Red Baron, wrote an autobiography. At that time he was Germany’s leading ace with 52 claimed kills. He later claimed 80 kills before he was shot down.
His autobiography was almost certainly reviewed and censored by German authorities, although to what extent is hard to say.
I was re-reading it recently (I last read it when I was a kid) and a few passages stood out to me. These all occurred while he was serving with the Uhlans first in Russia and then in France at the start of the war.
On pages 47-48 for their operations at the border village of Kieltze in Poland (part of the Russian Empire), probably around 2 August 1914, Richthofen writes:
What should I do in order not to be noticed by the villagers? My first idea was to lock up the “pope.” [Russian priest] We fetched him from his house, to his great surprise. I locked him up among the bells in the church tower, took away the ladder, and left him sitting up above. I assured him that he would be executed if the population should show any hostile inclinations. A sentinel placed on the tower observed the neighborhood.
and five days later, only Richthofen and one other man were in the village:
…for the street swarmed with Cossacks…Most of them had lanterns, and they acted very incautiously and were very noisy. I estimated that they were from twenty to thirty. One had left his horse and gone to the “pope. whom I had let off the day before. Immediately it flashed through my brain, “Of course we are betrayed!…After having rested a few hours, our visitors rode away.
It is not stated if the “pope” went away with the Cossacks or if anything was done after the Cossacks left.
On pages 52-53 while they were at Arlon, Belgium in August 1914 Richthofen writes:
At Arlon I climbed the steeple in accordance with the tactical principles which we had ben taught in peace time…When I came down again I was surrounded by a crowd of angry young men who made hostile eyes, and who talked threateningly in undertones. My bicycle had, of course, been punctured, and I had to go on foot for half an hour. This incident amused me. I should have been delighted had it come to a fight. I felt absolutely sure of myself with a pistol in my hand.
Later on I hear that the inhabitants had behave very treacherously several days previously toward our cavalry, and later on towards our ambulances. It had therefore been found necessary to place quite a number of these gentlemen against the wall.
I assume the most negative interpretation of “against the wall” is correct. According to Wikipedia on Arlon: “Arlon was one of the first victims of the German invasion in 1914 as 121 inhabitants were executed on 26 August, on the orders of Colonel Richard Karl von Tessmar.” and in the Wikipedia article on Tessmar: “On 26 August, 121 Belgian civilians were executed at Arlon railway station on his order.”
On page 57 while they on Virton on or after 22 August 1914 Richthofen writes:
So both Loen and I had quarters for ourselves and our men…The monks were extremely amiable. They gave us as much to eat and to drink as we cared to have, and we had a very good time…We settled down as if we were on manoeuvres, and as if we were in the house of a delightful host and friend. At the same time it should be observed that thee days later we hanged several of our hosts to the lanterns because they could not overcome their desire to take a hand in the war. But that evening they were really extremely amiable.
This last one is significant as there were several major war crimes conducted by the German Army in that area. Dinant with 674 executed by Saxon troops being the largest. According to Wikipedia article on Virton “On August 22, 1914, at the onset of World War I, hundreds of inhabitants were summarily executed by the invading German army…” This is worth looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium
So I assume I am correct in reading this account as an open admission that he knew of and participated in war crimes and then published them in a censored wartime autobiography?
I was recently reading Rickenbacker: An Autobiography by top American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker.
Before Rickenbacker became an ace, he was a successful race car driver, having driven at Indianapolis from 1911-1916. He won a number of races on the circuit (but not Indy) and had a reputation as “fast Eddie.” His book describes his first major win of 1914 at Sioux City Iowa on pages 58-61, except the account appears to have been garbled.
To start with it says it was 1913 (there was no race in 1913), then it recounts they were at the race with Duesenbergs (which would have been 1914), then they describe that his teammates were Tom Alley and Ralph Mulford. Tom Alley was his teammate in 1914 with the Duesenberg team while Ralph Mulford was his teammate in 1915 with the Maxwell team. It then describes the race, including his encounter with and the fatal crash of “T. C. Cox.” This crash occurred in the 1915 race and the driver killed was Charles C. Cox.
He then wins the race in a Duesenberg, which would have been in 1914. He won the race in 1915 in a Maxwell. He does have his mechanic Eddie O’Donnell knocked out by a chunk of the dirt track during the race. Eddie O’Donnell was his mechanic in 1914, and was a driver in the 1915 for the Duesenberg team and placed second. He then has Tom Alley, his teammate in 1914, coming in 3rd (Tom Alley came in 5th in 1914, but came in 3rd in 1915, still in a Duesenberg but was not longer his teammate).
It does appear that the writer garbled the two accounts of his win in 1914 and his subsequent win there in 1915. I gather this account was supposed to be the 1914 race. Perhaps Eddie Rickenbacker confused the two races he won, but as he was involved in a fatal crash in 1915, I find it hard to believe that he would.
It is a very well written 443-page book for a guy who did not complete 7th grade. I do wonder if he had to hire a ghostwriter or if his editor took a heavy hand to the early chapters. In the front of the book he does thank Booton Herndon for his editorial assistance. There is no indication that a ghost writer was used.
